Idlewild
The Remote Part
[EMI; 2002]
Rating: 6.5
I remember when people thought I was going to be the next Radiohead. From
morning to night, I was tailed by writers from NME, Mojo and
Uncut, who shouted questions from fast-moving vehicles about my
favorite soccer players, who I was dating, and what Joy Division meant to
me. I spent a day in Trafalgar Square as part of a photo spread with
Coldplay's Chris Martin, Travis' Francis Healy, and Placebo's Brian Molko.
Then they found out that my guitar skills never progressed beyond "Blister
in the Sun" and my falsetto closely approximates the frequency that causes
everyone within earshot to lose control of their bowels. Before you could
say "Manic Street Preachers," my own personal media circus had left town.
So I can kinda empathize with the boys of Idlewild, who've had to deal with
their own fair share of R-head comparisons and Yorkeian accusations. Never
mind the fact that the Scottish quartet doesn't sound like anything Radiohead
has produced since the anthemic days of The Bends; they're from the UK
(Scotland, to be precise), and that's all that it takes to be thrown into a
compare-and-contrast table by my limey colleagues. The superbly named Roddy
Woomble and his humble bandmates don't want to change the world or open
peoples' minds to foreign electronic soundscapes; they just want their songs
to be used in episodes of Seventh Heaven.
Because let's get right down to it: Idlewild is a radio band, writing and
performing pop/rock songs that are negligibly challenging and designed to be
hits. Standard Pitchfork policy says I should therefore spend the next 800
words using my considerable skills in the art of the mock, but you know, I'm
not really feeling that salty today. So instead I'll dust off my trusty
mainstream listening helmet... let's see, I think it's crammed under my bed
here next to those Soundgarden and Oasis discs I couldn't sell back... there
it is. Alright, let the popist perspective commence!
Mainstream listening helmet or no, I have to admit that The Remote Part
contains a lot of potential alt-rock hits, to these ears. It's one of those
albums where each and every song could be a single, be it driving guitar salvos
like "A Modern Way of Letting Go" and "(I Am) What I Am Not" or purty
falsetto-slide ballads like "American English". Idlewild also has that
particular shapeshifting ability to sound like a gaggle of popular bands at
once, be it Sugar or Matthew Sweet in their more uppity moments, to Wheat
or occasionally-- and unfortunately-- the (sigh) Goo Goo Dolls when they get
all sensitive.
Thing is, Idlewild are just too good at what they're doing to get out the
critical brass knuckles. The Remote Part might strip away a lot of
the instrumental variety of their last take-home product, 100 Broken
Windows, but even that album was pretty kiddie-pool shallow when it came
to experimentalism. Besides, directness suits Idlewild well, be it the taut
melancholy "I Never Wanted", the near-Velveeta-but-not big chorus of "Live in
a Hiding Place" or the top-down abandon of the crunchy "Out of Routine".
Now you're probably wondering why, if I'm so high on elements of The Remote
Part, the rating still resides in decidedly lukewarm point-system territory.
Well, it's not a desperate indie-cred preservation move, honest. No, really.
Scout's honor. The point dockage is due here because the album starts to wear
thin by the homestretch, with "Century after Century" and "Tell Me Ten Words"
shooting past my tolerance for drollness. Blame it on the album being more a
collection of singles more than a cohesive whole, kind of like Jay-Z's The
Blueprint (world's first Idlewild/Jay-Z comparison, ding!). But the fairly
standard fast-song/slow-song dichotomy of the album has serious luster-degrading
effects, even over its brief forty-minute runtime.
The Remote Part still makes it up to the sunny side of 5.0, however, if
only because a good third of the album has been stuck in my head throughout the
rigorous Mitchum listening analysis. Idlewild falls into that select group of
rock acts that wouldn't provoke a reflexive stab for the 'scan' button if it
came on the radio, and I wouldn't be surprised if "American English" has already
hit a few alternative-demographic playlists. Perhaps it's not an album for the
more staid, discerning listener (or for those without a mainstream listening
helmet), but it's a strong fort in guilty-pleasure territory for those who
enjoy a few straight-up, no-frills sticky melodies now and then.
-Rob Mitchum, September 12th, 2002